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Tattered Cover v. Thornton Reversed
TheMatt writes "In a victory for all those who like the First Amendment, the Colorado Supreme Court today reversed
and remanded 'Tattered Cover v. Thornton'.
The case concerned the Thornton police attempting to use a search warrant to gain access to the book-buying records of a suspected criminal. The Tattered Cover asserted First Amendment rights and refused to comply with the warrant.
It is believed this will be heard by the US Supreme Court eventually." I can only imagine what the Tattered cover's legal bill must be like.
In high profile cases that challenge the courts' previous decisions the work is usually done pro bono(free).
It's actually a really cool bookstore. It's positively huge - four floors, with comfy chairs and couches all over the place. They have successfully perservered as an independent bookstore in the face of competition from the big chains.
-Vercingetorix
"Necessitas non habet legem." -St. Augustine
For those of you not from Colorado. The Tattered Cover is a bookstore chain out here in Colorado that specializes in all sorts of books over all sorts of subjects. The two stores that I am aware of (there may be more) are at least three, maybe for fours. There are not a used book store and the can be said to be larger than any Barnes and Nobles that I know of.
From a computer books perspective they are neither the best nor the worst but certainly they do carry them.
Beware the wood elf!!!
To save a little time... Quote below...
Plaintiff-Appellant:
TATTERED COVER, INC., d/b/a THE TATTERED COVER BOOKSTORE,
v.
Defendants-Appellees:
THE CITY OF THORNTON; and THORNTON POLICE OFFICER RANDY GOIN, in his official capacity.
JUDGMENT REVERSED AND CASE REMANDED
EN BANC
JUSTICE BENDER delivered the Opinion of the Court.
JUSTICE COATS does not participate
First off, it's not a used bookstore...at least not the merchandise I have seen there (I have been to the LoDo store, but not Cherry Creek).
:)
Their legal fund (according to one of their clerks, anyway) is with:
American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression
139 Fulton St #302
NY, NY 10038
Or you can call them at 303-322-7727 or 303-436-1070. I'm not listing their toll-free number here cause it costs them money for people to call them on it
You CAN order books directly from them online at www.tatteredcover.com. They have been very helpful in finding books for me that B&N, Boreders, and Amazon have said were out of print.
Denver Isuzu Suzuki
...I'd appreciate someone pointing me to the background for this story...
OK, here's the story. The local police busted a meth lab and found how-to drug manuals in a trailer, along with receipts from the bookstore. But the receipts didn't name the purchaser of the books, so the local DA subpoenaed the bookstore's customer records. The bookstore fought the subpoena and won.
http://www.cobar.org/CFwebFiles/Content/dspOpinion . fm?OpinionID=560
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
No. Justice bender is a he. here is his bio.
"The dinosaurs died because they didn't have a space program." - Niven
When I first read this, I thought: "That's very strange. Why shouldn't the police be able to get the book buying records of a legitimate criminal suspect? They can get phone company records and credit card records, right?"
Pages 9 and 10 of the ruling make it clear:
---
[Officer Goin] and DI McFarland then served the Tattered Cover with a DEA administrative subpoena. [...] Using such a subpoena was ordinarily a successful technique for DEA officers, though such a subpoena lacks any legal force or effect.
[...]
INSTEAD OF ATTEMPTING TO OBTAIN AN ENFORCEABLE SUBPOENA, Officer Goin approached prosecutors from the Adams County District Attorney's office to get a search warrant for the Tattered Cover. Several prosecutors at the Adams County DA's office refused to sign off on the warrant, voicing concerns about its scope and subject matter. [...]
Without informing the Adams County DA's office, Officer Goin sought approval for his search warrant from the Denver DA's office. As approved by a Denver DA, the warrant authorized a search of the Tattered Cover for information related to the transaction in question, and for records of any other transaction involving Suspect A during the thirty-day period before the police searched the trailer. A Denver county court judge then approved the warrant.
---
So, basically the Officer was a dope who tried to do an end-run around the law. Oops!
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Actually, if you read the entire opinion, the judge talks quite a bit about why the 1st amendment *should* apply. To put it briefly, freedom of expression implies freedom to recieve that expression, ie. by purchasing and reading books; making it easy for law enforcement to find out who's reading what would have a substancial chilling effect on the first amendment rights of both book buyers and publishers as a whole.
The court's decision is chock full of some very significant ideas and quotes from previous cases, many of which directly apply to another free speech issue - the DMCA.
For example: "Without the right to receive information and ideas, the protection of speech under the United States and Colorado Constitutions would be meaningless."
Or: "Everyone must be permitted to discover and consider the full range of expression and ideas available in our 'marketplace of ideas.'"
Footnote 14 in the text of the decision is an absolutely brilliant quotation of Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis regarding the "freedom to think as you will and speak as you think".
The decision is well worth reading. It's not in some sort of complex legalese. Far from it, it is very clearly stated.
-h-
Note that under the so-called "Patriot Act", not only will the FBI be able to seize these kinds of records, but it will be illegal for the media to report on any such seizure. How's that for the ability to rewrite history, Soviet-style?
Details here.
The FBI was never here, go about your business.
Actually, the Tattered Cover is quite well-heeled. I live in Denver, and the place is a Mecca for book lovers. It's the largest bookstore for a thousand miles in any direction. They have a second branch in LoDo (Lower-Downtown) which is smaller but still of quite a respectable size.
The main branch in downtown Denver has four stories of books (plus a basement). The fifth floor is a well-reviewd restaurant that serves fantastic garlic potatoes (among other things). Oh, and they have a coffee bar which serves the best cappucino in Denver.
The decor is tasteful and friendly; a big selling point in the Tattered Cover is that they provide lots of big, over-stuffed chairs and let you sit down and read before you buy. In some ways, it feels more like a library than a book store. Their selection of books is phenomenal; There's only one book I've been unable to obtain from them, and that was "On the Erythraean Sea" by Agatharchides of Cnidus. (Contains the only contemporary account of gold-mining techniques in Ptolemaic Egypt; hardly New York Times Best Seller List material.)
From what I've heard, they have a yearly revenue of a couple million. So, chances are that their web server is more likely to be a dual-cpu RAM-out-the-wazoo behemoth than a PII 450.
Since the decision is EXPLICITLY grounded in the Colorado constitution's Article 2, rather than in the First Amendment, the US Supreme Court has no reason to review the case.
Judge Bender held that the Colorado Constitution granted wider free speach protections than the First Amendment.
Sorry to be a pain but they're actually running Netscape-Enterprise/3.6 SP3 on Solaris. Uptime looks good.
*** I am the real stylewagon
Better yet, please link to BookSense.com
http://www.booksense.com/
Not only does BookSense support the Tattered Cover (and tons of other local independent bookstores), but you can easily order from *your* local bookstore. Can Amazon beat same-day pickup?
(BTW, the American Bookseller's Association which runs BookSense.com is partially supporting the Tattered Cover legal fees.)
-Geoff
Actually, the receipt *did* name the purchaser ("Suspect A"), but not the titles of the books s/he bought. The police, who apparently did a pretty shoddy job of questioning the suspects they found at the scene, had no other means of linking Suspect A to the bedroom in which the books (available from Tattered Cover's catalogue) were found.